Warning: Spoilers for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever to follow.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is undoubtedly pop culture’s favorite ever-evolving beast – with every passing film, Disney Plus series, and television special unfolding nuance after nuance that simultaneously fills fans’ palates and leaves them drooling for more.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which just came off a jubilant opening weekend at the box office, is no exception; we always knew the introduction of Namor, one of Marvel’s oldest characters, alone all but confirmed that it would be teeing up some tumultuous trials for the MCU canon in the years to come, and coupled with the debut of Riri Williams (aka Ironheart), the Midnight Angels tease, and Valentina Allegra de Fontaine’s undoubtedly diabolical plans, the Phase Four swansong left us quite a bit to look forward to.
But with Namor’s debut in particular, the MCU now has all the necessary pieces to get the Defenders gang back together (no, we don’t mean the Netflix series; more on that later).
The Defenders is the name of of a Marvel Comics superhero team, much like the X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four, founded by Doctor Strange, Hulk, and Namor. The group isn’t quite as organized as the aforementioned examples, often consisting of characters who are driven by personal goals, but their teamwork has been coherent enough to warrant an umbrella team name nevertheless.
The team was first formed in Marvel Feature #1, a comic book released in December 1971, and would go on to have a number of rotating members as time went on, with two of the most frequent being Clea Strange (who we were introduced to in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), and the Silver Surfer, who is heavily rumored to be making his MCU debut sooner rather than later. Other past recruits include Hank Pym, Janet van Dyne, and Hawkeye.
If Marvel Studios does indeed plan to make good on the original Defenders name, they’ll have some tricky waters to navigate if they want to avoid confusion with The Defenders, a miniseries originally developed for Netflix that focused on the MCU’s Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Iron Fist, all whom up to that point were also confined to Netflix.
With Kingpin and Daredevil firmly ingrained in the modern MCU canon, it’s no stretch to imagine that Matt Murdock’s Netflix contemporaries are still lurking around as well. If that is the case, it will be interesting to see what becomes of the Defenders name; perhaps a team-up between Namor, Strange, and Hulk will be how Cage, Jones, and Iron Fist are reeled into the Disney era.